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Based on the way we played last night I'd be pretty happy if we end up 8-4. I'm still holding out hope that maybe A&M is going to be really good this year and our Defense can make some big improvements, but not nearly as optimistic as I was this time yesterday.

__________________
"Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that."
Bill Shankly, YNWA!

Texas A&M - L
East Carolina - Toss up, runs air raid offense, spreads the field has QB who threw over 4,000 yards last year can put up big points, scored 52 on the Tarholes last year. W but very close
Georgia - L ..we will see how they play against Clemson
@ Vanderbilt - W
Missouri - push, Mizzou has Maty Mauk, their D should be ok. I see Carolina could lose this one.. L
@Kentucky - W
Furman - W
@Auburn - L
Tennessee -Much needed W at home
@Florida - L
South Alabama - W
@Clemson - W until otherwise, could change later in season but i give Carolina the edge since 5 in a row.

Losses to A&M, UGA, Auburn, UF and one other between ECU/Tennessee/Mizzou. Possibly Clemson but they have to prove they can win it, not you guys proving you can lose it.

I am looking to get a good perception of how SC is as a team next week. A&M played lights out... think they would've beaten just about anyone last night.

Also I think it's possible we get our asses handed to us by ECU. I never thought that was possible but we need to be realistic with the defense that was on the field last night.

Florida is going to administer a beatdown. Clemson, by the time that rolls around, will be on a serious roll after their cupcake schedule. They will probably take out five years of frustration on our ass

Right now, we are a 7-5 team. We will get better each week. We still have a great shot to win our next 6 games though and get right back on track. Will it happen, I don't know but we are better than what we showed last night.
ECU-W. scary offense but i think we can outscore them
UGA-W. not sold on them yet. Until proven otherwise, I still have faith @ home.
@vandy-W. finally an easy win for us
mizzou-W. another tough game but they lost more than we did.
@UK-W. probably will be close like always on the road
Furman-W. not even close
@auburn-L.-could be ugly...
UT-W. I think we should be able to get revenge at home.
UF-L. I thought this would be an L before, but still need to see floridas offense
S.bama-W. easy W
Clemson-complete toss-up until we see what they have against uga and fsu.

Yes last night was terrible, but i'm hoping more of a wake up call for our players and coaches. I think our d will simplify things and we don't know how good our offense can be. We didn't even try to have a run game because we were down so early. A more balanced attack and we will be able to eat the clock more and help our d the best we can. 9-3 might be the best case scenario with maybe an outside shot at 10-2 if we make huge strides defensively. We usually start slow(not this slow) and I can only see it getting better from here. I'm a pretty big critic so this is not all coming from a sunshine pumper

__________________2013 Alum. Went to school during the golden age of gamecock sports

We might rebound. But a point I have made in other threads here is that we usually don't beat SEC teams soundly. Sometimes we do like Kentucky a few times (though Stoops has increased the talent level the past few years), but generally we play close games and if we win by more than a touchdown the box score doesn't show how close the game actually was.

So what if the bounces go against us this year?

Looking at that schedule, we clearly outclass South Alabama and Furman.

Of the other games:

Game 2) East Carolina. They play a spread, throw the ball a lot, and it is awful difficult to sack their qb. In short we play a team very similar to the one that just beat us. I don't expect them to have the same athletes on defense as A&M, but no matter how A&M did against us, that isn't a world beater defense.

It is often said teams make their biggest improvements between week 1 and 2, but that goes both ways. Whatever we see in East Carolina's first game, they should be better in week 2.

Game 3) Georgia.

Game 4) @Vanderbilt. We ought to win this one. Losing to Temple soundly in the first game is a lot worse than what we did in our first game. I kind of suspect that trying to do things like Stanford is a mistake at Vandy. At least the kind of offense they run.

If you can't recruit the caliber of offensive linemen and qb's you get at Stanford just by being Stanford, it is probably a mistake.

Even if it works, it is going to take years and a lot of losses to pay off, as opposed to what Franklin was doing.

Game 5) Missouri. I really don't get why people are penciling this in as a win. They won 12 last year. I saw a lot of good things from Mauk, and he is mobile, which historically has been more our defense's kryptonite than passing teams.

Game 6) @Kentucky. Stoops has been upgrading the talent. No idea who starts at qb for them, but if he is mobile they have a chance to beat us.

Game 7) Furman

Game 8) @Auburn. They will run over us. An interesting sub game is how Spurrier and Johnson coach against one another. They obviously know each other well

My guess is that Johnson wins this particular battle. We are the kind of team his defenses always did best against, He never did very well against mobile qb's, but that isn't going to be a problem for him.

Game 9) Tennessee. At home, but somewhere between Kentucky and Missouri as regards quality of team. Davis has been recruiting well, they have a super receiver who is tall and athletic, just like those A&M receivers. Guess we should win this, since they have a lot of holes to fill, but I don't think we outclass them athletically. We will see a lot of new faces for them, so we have more experience, but I wouldn't pencil this in as an auto win.

Game 10) @Florida. They have the defense to shut us down cold. If they don't screw around trying to fit square pegs into round holes, and implement a run oriented offense that uses Driskel's best traits we lose.

Game 11) South Alabama.

Game 12) @Clemson. Depends on Stoudt really. I think Boyd basically handed us the games the past three years. If Stoudt doesn't implode when he plays us, they will be a lot tougher to beat.

I expect Stoudt to do at least as well passing as Boyd did the past few years. If he does better, which is entirely possible, they have a very good chance of winning this game. Very good.

I expect the defense to improve over the course of the season. If the offense doesn't find a way to run the ball they are not going to be very good this year.

There aren't many teams on that schedule we couldn't potentially beat. But there are a lot of teams that could beat us.

I'll say 7-5, with an outside chance at 3-9, or 10-2, or 11-1. Seriously the closeness of most of the SEC games we have played, makes me think the gap between 3-9 and 11-1 isn't as big as it appears. Florida really could have won the game at our place last year, even with their awful record.

If you have a few losses, things can snowball in this conference easily.

Shaw's mobility covered up a lot of offensive deficiencies the past few years. Without that, things are going to be a lot more interesting I think.

Let's just concentrate and take it one week at a time. I'm sure these weekly predictions will change if we look like world beaters and say we spanked ECU by 40+ points, like the ranked team we are. Also, if we lose to ECU, the other way around.

But as it stands right now, I have faith in our coaching staff. Hell, I'm surprised we're not complaining about special teams! That's weird.